Me and the Rabbit

(The day I got an earful)

Recently, on a Spring-like weekend day, I was sitting on our back veranda over-looking the back forty of our “estate.” The sun was up there and beating down some warm and welcoming rays when I’ll be damned; a rabbit was hopping by just a few feet away. He then abruptly stopped after apparently finding a nourishing morsel of new grass. I sat perfectly still in my red Muskoka chair, watching him nibble away, carefully I reached out for, and while lifting my glass of wine, he glanced my way.

“Good afternoon Mr. Rabbit,” I said softly, “how’re you enjoying your lunch?”

“Afternoon?” he exclaimed, “Good God, I thought I was having dinner, slept in this morning as the damned rain kept me up most of the night.” “And,” he muttered, “ why would you think that anyone or thing would find grass enjoyable?”

And with that, and with his nose twitching, away he went, back to chowing down his not-so-tasty lunch/dinner. I retreated to my wine and starting pondering how it was I was sitting here talking to a rabbit! Was I hallucinating, just zapped by the Coronavirus or had my mind drifted into a new dimension. I looked over at the Hare (I think they’re called that in North America?) and thought indeed, these were strange and difficult times, and so, why not continue the seemingly illusionary conversation.

“And so, Mr. Rabbit, what do you think of the Corona thing”?, I asked because that was the only topical issue I could come up with at the moment. I’d already asked him about the grass, and the virus was the only subject us humans were talking about over the past several months. The rabbit stopped eating and looked over at me with ears lowered and, I swear, his eyes squinting.

“Coronavirus is your problem, bub. The air down here is a lot cleaner than what you’ve produced up there, and I don’t have to worry about bringing any toxic material to my warren that may have attached itself to my tail. Besides, we’re all out of Haresol Wipes, and the lady of the burrow makes do with nature’s way, and I guarantee you that she doesn’t go for this six feet distancing thing that you idiots invented”.

Oh, sweet Jehovah, I thought. I’ve opened a can of worms (so to speak) since he’s bound to have plenty of those at his house.

“Well, wait a minute, big ears,” I threw back at him, “ it may be a problem up here, but –but The Donald says it’s all the fault of the Chinese, not us guys.” That was probably a weak response, but I thought the mention of Twitter King would get his attention. It did.

“Tell me you’re kidding a-hole,” he shouted with his lips unfurling the presence of his two front choppers. I leaned forward to convince myself that a rabbit had just called me an a-hole. He continued, “That mealy-mouthed excuse for a President can’t string together a series of rational thoughts that don’t even come close to literacy. Just take a look a ‘dumb-dumb’s face any time a reporter askes him a serious question that needs a serious answer. He passes everything over to piercing- eye Pence who, in his usual lap-dog fashion, answers the question in such length that, in the end, it’s all pretty well mute”.

My mind suddenly lurched forward with, “Stop, stop! Are you trying to tell me that you’ve watched these press conferences?”

“Of course,” came the retort, “ we’ve got a TV in each of the burrows, and the little missus and I like to snuggle up and watch after the six kids are tucked in for the night. And don’t ask which channel we watch because we only get CBC down there. We pray nightly that CTV will come to our rescue”.

“Wow,” I exclaimed, “And I thought I’d seen it all back in the days of Brer Rabbit and Brer Bear.”

It was then that the rabbit stood up on his hind legs and threw a pointed paw at me. “you know that was the worst piece of Rabbit myth ever dreamed up, and that includes Bugs Bunny and that egghead Elmer Fudd, his comic relief whose ‘lisp’ some gay people would envy. But, it’s the tar baby story out of the mouth of Uncle Remus that is a simple tale of trickery highlighting the moral suasions of slavery in the deep South. The rabbit, if you’ll remember, does escape his bondage set to by Brer Fox and Brer Bear, and I stand (sorta) here today yet to be tarred and feathered again”.

“Feathered,” I questioned.

“It’s just an expression, bub,” he replied.

“so, my friend rabbit, I’m going in for another glass of sustenance. Are you going to be here for a while”, I asked.

“No, he said, “I’m going to hop over to the neighbour’s grass. But, in case you’re asking, you might want to put together some leafy material from one of your salads and leave it just outside your porch. The kids really like a treat now and then”.

“Sure thing, “ I said, “ be happy to help as you’re ‘hopping down the bunny trail’ and you can bet your cottontail it will be non-touched and non-Corona’d.

I thought this was a clever sideline into the Peter Cotton Tail song by Gene Autry, America’s best-loved and wealthiest cowboy. Obviously, the rabbit didn’t think so.

“Actually,” he snarled, “I heard his horse Champion thought he was the worst dressed cowboy ever and that he liked to ride side-saddle. Put that in your wine, bub”.

With that image emblazoned in my memory, I retreated to the house where my darling wife was fishing through her social media to find something to relieve the boredom and stress of indoor living.

“Saw the rabbit,” I said.

“Oh good,” she replied, “was he sitting still for you”?

“yeah,” I thought aloud. “And we had quite a conversation.”

“That’s good sweetie,” she murmured as she continued her search, “news will be on shortly if you absolutely have to watch it.”

“Not tonight, babe,” I said “ “I don’t have any appetite for dumb-dumb right now on how the economic empire HE built is floating into the sewer, and it’s not his fault.”

Over the days approaching and through summer, the Rabbit and I had several conversations. I learned a lot from them, and from time-to-time, I’ll write them down and pass along.